THE National Security Ministry expects to have new draft guidelines for the issuing of firearm licences some time in the New Year and there is a growing chorus for these to include psychological profiles of gunholders.

The revision of the gun licensing regulations is to complement the government’s plan, announced in April, to establish an independent authority to oversee the issuance of such permits as part of efforts to fight corruption in the constabulary.

But several cases, in recent years, of licenced gunholders engaging in deadly firefights among themselves or shooting unarmed persons over seemingly trivial issues, are driving those who argue for psychological profiling as part of a general tightening of the licensing procedures. “Something has to be done,” a senior medical professional said one day last week.

“We have to have an appreciation of who we give guns and how they are likely to behave in given circumstances. You don’t want a case of the gunholder coming out blazing and asking questions afterwards.” This professional operates in the New Kingston area, near to the New Kingston Shopping Centre where Carlington

Samuels, 22, was shot several times by a licenced firearm owner last Tuesday. Samuels died subsequently and Lincoln Williams of Chancellor Hall, St Andrew was arrested and charged with murder. According to the police, both men had an argument inside the shopping centre when the gun came into play.

Last Wednesday, the issue was still a hot topic of discussion in the shopping centre. Plenty of “what ifs” were being asked. The consensus, it seemed, was that it was an incident that shouldn’t have happened. “The incident was most unfortunate,” said the health professional.

But last week’s incident was only the latest in a series of bizarre shooting cases, some of which would pass as theatrical, even if deadly, parodies of Wild West movies.

Take the case of the July 2001 incident at Our Place Jerk Centre on Hope Road in Kingston when three men died in a gunfight over parking.

By the time the gunshots died down that Sunday night, Cordel Clunie, the 59 year-old brother of Deputy Commissioner of Police Owen Clunie, as well as Keith Nash, 40, lay dead. David Gayor, 45, who operated the bar, later died in hospital.

In June last year, bus crews for the government’s Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) stopped working when a bus driver was allegedly shot by a licenced firearm holder during an argument after a traffic accident.

In that incident, though, the shooter claimed to have been threatened with a knife and the victim was shot in the leg.

Also in June last year, Trevor Dunkley of May Pen was arrested and charged with shooting a police officer whom he apparently mistook for a gunman. Dunkley was apparently attempting to be a public spirited citizen, helping distressed passengers of a broken down car, when the injured policeman came upon him and was mistaken for a criminal.

Then there was the party boat case in Montego Bay in 2002, when two persons were believed to have been shot dead – one of the bodies was never recovered – and two injured in a blazing gunbattle on the seas.

Francis “Deon” Young was charged with murder and wounding with intent for the incident on the crowded boat. The gunfight apparently had its roots in a long-standing feud between Young and the missing man, David Ellis.

“We need to know who are (the people) getting gun lincences,” said one well-dressed woman in New Kingston on the day after the shooting on the mall’s escalator.

She had recalled some of these incidents and others. “You have big men acting like children sometimes,” she said. “It’s like they playing cowboys.”

At least one senior cop believes that it may be a good idea to go just a bit further by psychologically assessing persons applying for gun permits.

But for Assistant Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington, applicants would be asked to voluntarily submit the information.

According to Ellington, the police now get a general picture of an applicant’s state of mind during the regular checks made after applications are submitted.

“The investigations do not (include psychological checks) but the general inquiry that we conduct would raise flags,” he said. “But as a rule we do not ask for medical reports on individuals.”

While stressing that he believes the authorities have the final say in setting the parameters for the application process, consultant psychiatrist at the Bellevue Hospital Dr Myo Oo suggested that further discussion is needed on the issue.

“I don’t know the (entire) process that is used now, but certainly they need to look at the issue,” he told the Sunday Observer.

“If you are applying for a driver’s licence you are asked about your medical health,” he added, suggesting that similar questions that would cover both mental and physical health could be added on applications for gun permits.

However, Yvonne McCalla-Sobers, the head of the civic action group Families Against State Terrorism (FAST), threw her full support behind the suggestion.

“There absolutely should be some kind of psychological evaluation done to ensure that people don’t use the gun arbitrarily in a temper, or in rage,” she said. “We have had instances of road rage, disputes in households where people got very angry.”

While her preference would be for fewer guns overall, she said, psychological evaluations would help limit the number of people who are issues with gun permits.

Ellington, however, was uncertain “that a case has been made” for a more intrusive psychological evaluation.

“What the application form could ask for is disclosure on the part of the applicant as to whether he has (ever) been admitted in a mental institution or he has been treated for psychological problems and things like that,” said Ellington, who is acting head of Area Four. “It does not now ask for that, but maybe, for the purpose of disclosure, that should now be included in the procedures.”

The senior cop, however cautioned, that even these questions could raise concerns about the right to privacy.

Said Ellington: “This information has to move between various desks, officers are going to be required to give you reports on individuals and then these reports are handled by different people.

“It sort of borders on the question of privacy, when you ask people to produce that kind of medical information.”

But whether or not such psychological profiling becomes part of the arsenal for determining who gets a gun licence, the government is going through with the planned reforms, including the special unit, that were unveiled in the Throne speech by the governor general, Sir Howard Cooke.

The rewriting of the guidelines for gun licences will dovetail with the drafting of legislation allowing the establishment of the Firearm Authority.

“We expect that the amendments to the legislation should be in the House when it sits in the New Year,” said Gilbert Scott, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of National Security.

“We don’t have control of the legislative agenda, but at least the amendments should be tabled in the new sitting. Within that same time frame, we should have the new procedures ready so that by the time the legislation is passed we would have it in place.”

The ministry, he said, would have to write new procedures for the application and approval process and additional technology would also be needed.

“You have to acquire new technology to capture and automate the whole process, so that anybody who has applied for a licence (can be tracked),” Scott explained.

The independent Firearm Authority is seen by the government as the answer to years of rumours and allegations about corruption in the issuing of gun permits – a process managed by the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

Two years ago, after complaints that known criminals and persons of questionable character were being given permission to carry guns, Police Commissioner Francis Forbes ordered an audit into the approval process.

It is not clear whether that review has been completed, but Forbes has in the past spoken of difficulties in carrying it through.

Nonetheless, in March, cops revoked a number of licences and seized up to 300 guns from persons who had initially been granted permits. Six senior cops were placed under investigation, suspected of breaching the rules.

There has been no official word on the outcome of these investigations but some of these cops have been transferred.

While little had been said about the independent authority since the April announcement, Scott told the Sunday Observer last week that “the project is still alive”.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police Lucius Thomas, a draft document had been presented to the JCF.

“They met with us some time in June, I believe, and they have continued to work and I believe the draft documentation was presented at a meeting about a month ago,” he said.